Old Town of Port Caddo

The Handbook of Texas says Obediah Hendrick Jr. received 660 acres from the Republic of Texas on July 7, 1838, and laid out a town of more than 1,000 lots at Taylor's Bluff. A customs service was set up about 1839, and an 1845 act made Port Caddo a port of entry. Tariff refusals continued until the customs office closed on January 31, 1846, after annexation. The post office ran from 1846 to 1866, and the town declined once Big Cypress Bayou opened to Jefferson shortly before the Civil War.

What the plaque says

Old Town of Port Caddo Ancestral home of Texas Caddo Indians, this region gained a distinctive character in the 19th century. From 1806 to 1845 it lay in an area disputed by various countries and designated, from 1819, as the "neutral ground." Settlers living here were far from neutral, however. They became independent and resisted paying taxes levied by any "outside" authority. Port Caddo, founded 1838 on Caddo Lake, soon grew to importance, and its rowdy reputation grew too, as ship's crews, gamblers, and Indians filled its streets. Meanwhile, new towns and roads sprung up nearby. Continuing upheaval led to the assassination of the tax collector in 1840 and the townsmen joined in the factional "Regulator-Moderator War" from 1840 to 1844. When Texas proposed to join the Union in 1845, Port Caddoans saw a chance to end their problems and voted strongly in favor of statehood. From 1845 to the 1850's Port caddo thrived, growing to 500, but then declined as the Port of Jefferson and the county seat of Marshall drew away business. With the end of the great plantations after the Civil War, falling of the water level in Caddo Lake, and coming of the railroad to nearby Karnack (1900), Port Caddo gradually faded out of existence. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caddo Lake State Park — steps away
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park on the Texas shore of Caddo Lake, where the Caddo told of a lake made by wind-driven water and visitors now paddle Big Cypress Bayou past moss-hung bald cypress.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 1.2 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.
• Excelsior House Hotel — 11 mi
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — 11 mi
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.

More markers nearby

• Hometown of Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson — 1.0 mi
• Longhorn Army Ammunition Plant — 1.0 mi
• Leigh Community Center and Health Unit — 2.4 mi
• Marshall-Shreveport Stagecoach Road — 7.9 mi